Help your kids hone their writing skills this summer before they embark on the next school year.
By Allison Cohen
Help your kids hone their writing skills this summer before they embark on the next school year.
Blank pages and screens are utterly terrifying, especially for kids. Writing is the bane of most students’ educational careers. Really, for most kids, it's tantamount to torture. And for good reason. The journey from blank page to completed assignment, regardless of how small, seems daunting. But there are many ways that parents can help demystify this task. For starters, kids aren't explicitly taught how to write. Like anything, it's a skill that's only developed with practice, and lots of it.
As an educator, I've honed my writing abilities and can write anything. Even creative writing, which once paralyzed me with fear, comes effortlessly. As a student, this wasn't the case. My mom can share endless stories of me hysterically crying at the kitchen counter because I didn't know what to write, or how to start. Honestly, I didn't solve the mystery of writing until graduate school. Yes, you read that correctly. I was a full-fledged adult before I figured this whole thing out.
While I spent my five years in schools teaching math, which is my true love, I often found myself helping my students with their writing assignments. I quickly realized that writing invoked in them the same fears, anxieties and feelings of disdain.
Helping them reframe writing into something more doable and less scary was my main goal. Below is a list of my main pearls of writing wisdom:
1. Writing is no different than speaking. No, really—they're the same. I was always amazed that a student who seemingly couldn't write the answer could beautifully tell me the answer. So encourage your kids to write what they would say. We can clean it up later.
2. For a lot of students, starting is the most difficult part. Literally, the very first sentence seems impossible. After all, there are so many possibilities, yet none of them seem "right." It's akin to the first day of a diet—we all can relate. A great way to help students overcome this initial hurdle is to brainstorm ideas with them. A strategy I find helpful is to alternate ideas. And yes, I always go first. After all, I'm modeling what a "good" start might sound like. Then it's their turn. We do this for a few rounds and then they can select their favorite. Of course, they pick one of mine. But, there's a catch: they have to change it slightly—replace a word with a synonym, add an adjective, etc. Then, let them work through the rest of the assignment. After all, there is no harm in helping them with their first step in the ascent of literary Mt. Everest.
3. Next comes the fun part—editing. One of the most effective strategies to help students edit their own work is to read it aloud. This exercise lets them hear their own words and process their writing through a different lens. Words will sound "off" or "wrong" audibly that wouldn't seem wrong if seen visually. Simply put, when students reread their own writing, they simply don't see errors, but they can often hear them. While this is an effective tool for all writers, it works especially well for kids.
Perhaps the most effective thing you can do to remove the dread and anxiety from writing is to write with your kids. Yes, that's right. Create stories together. Write movie and restaurant reviews. Create your own superhero tales. How do we instill a love of reading in kids? We read with them. Why would writing be any different?
Allison lives in New York City with her husband and two Bengal kittens - Denner & Mochi. She is an academic coach specializing in math and writing for students in grades K-12. She is also the author of the book, Card Sharks: Math Games for Kids. When she is not working with kids, she enjoys martial arts, cooking, and board games. If you are interested in working with Allison you can reach her here
I hope this helpful to our families!